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 | Reviews for The Mutation of Time |
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There are 2 reviews so far. To add a review of your own for this item, visit the voting page.
| By: | Quist, NZ |
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| Date: | Tuesday 25 September 2007 |
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| Rating: |   7 |
Picking up from where volume one left off, Peel's effort begins to sag a little in this second volume. Mind you, it does suffer from having to include the rather tedious Christmas episode...
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| Foyle's War - in Space! Part 2 |
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| By: | Leon Coward, Sydney, Australia |
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| Date: | Friday 29 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
It's unfair to review this without mentioning it's a continuation of the story set up in the Daleks' Master Plan Part One "Mission to the Unknown".
Many of the comments I made in my review about the first book http://www.timelash.com/tardis/reviews.php?591 I would extend to this second volume.
This second book concerns the Daleks chasing the Doctor and the TARDIS crew across time and space, in order to retrieve the Taranium Core for their *megalithic* weapon: the Time Destructor. The idea of the Time Destructor is a nice one: it has the capacity to either reverse a planet and its lifeforms to their earliest days (protoplasmic amoeba globules and all) or it can send it forward, making everything decay into dust in a matter of minutes. The story is mainly sent in Ancient Egypt, and features the return of the Meddling Monk (from "The Time Meddler") and the scenes with him and fun and are totally spot on in recapturing Peter Butterworth [from Carry On] as the Monk, in both presence and dialogue.
The only disappointment is the inclusion of material from the Christmas episode broadcast. It is obligatory, given it is a novelisation - but the light-hearted slapstick comedy is better on television and is very weak and chaotic in novel form (no criticism for John Peel's efforts, though). 50 or so pages in and I was wondering when the Daleks' Master Plan story would continue - it seemed all but forgotten about. That said, the playful scenarios are helpful in the reader warming to the character Sara Kingdom as a companion.
When the Daleks' Master Plan plot resurfaces, it does so in its former spirit. There are less political machinations and plot twists, but it has a steady pace and you can't tell where it's heading. The ending is satisfying, and the portrayal of the traitor Mavic Chen, and his attempt to rule the Daleks, makes for very engaging scenes.
